The History of Antiquity, Vol. 5 (of 6). Duncker Max
he changed the earlier forms of worship, and was the discoverer of the doctrine of the Magians.131 Suidas distinguishes between the Perso-Mede Zoroaster, the chief of the Magians, and the astronomer of the same name, an Assyrian, who lived at the time of Ninus.132 In Syncellus, Zoroaster is the first of the eight Median kings, who, according to the statement of Berosus, reigned over Babylonia from 2458 to 2224 B.C.133
These statements do not amount to much. Yet we find the tradition maintained from the pupils of Plato down to Agathias, that Zoroaster founded the doctrine of the Magians; Diodorus, Plutarch, and Dio mention the intercourse of Zoroaster with the good spirit or the deity. Diodorus calls him an Arian, i. e. an inhabitant of Eastern Iran. Hermippus, Trogus Pompeius, Kephalion, Theon, Arnobius, and Eusebius speak of him as a Bactrian, and the king of the Bactrians, and represent him as fighting with Ninus or Semiramis, which is also asserted by Moses of Khorene.134 Hence in the last two centuries B.C. it must have been known in the West that Zoroaster belonged to the East of Iran, and thus he was brought into connection with the most prominent fact known in the history of Bactria, the contest of the Bactrians against Ninus and Semiramis. This story, as we said, comes from the Medo-Persian Epos, and moreover the Epos did not authorise this connection of Ninus and Zoroaster. The opponent of Ninus, who reigned over Bactria, was, according to Diodorus, Oxyartes or Exaortes (p. 20). The fact that Zoroaster was the most important name in the antiquity of Iran among western nations obviously induced Syncellus to put him at the head of the supposed ancient Median dynasty. If Zoroaster, as Pliny and Plutarch think, lived only on milk and cheese, and passed thirty years in the wilderness, these are merely traits taken from the lives of the Brahman ascetics. The story in Dio Chrysostom, that Zoroaster came unharmed from the fire, and the opposite statements of the Chronicle of Alexandria and of Suidas, that he brought down fire from heaven and was consumed by it, or struck by lightning, contain traits which have obviously sprung from the importance which the doctrine of Zoroaster and the Magians ascribe to the worship of fire, and from the division between the fire of lightning and earthly fire, of which we shall speak below. The narrative of Eubulus is founded on the mysteries of Mithra, which came into the West in the first century B.C.135 These mysteries are due to the confusion of the Mithra of the Iranians with the sun-god of the Syrians; the mystæ were consecrated in caves, or in places called caves, and there underwent their probation. As the god of light and the soul Mithra slays in the cave, that is in the world of gloom and matter, the bull which is the symbol of matter, as opposed to light, in its creative power, and conveys the soul, the side of man akin to light, out of the gloom of matter through the heaven of the fixed stars, and then through the heaven of the planets, to the light.136 Ammianus Marcellinus and Agathias have better information about Zoroaster. They are aware that he stands in some relation to Hystaspes. Ammianus, though he expressly describes Zoroaster as a Bactrian, puts Hystaspes the well-known father of Darius, as the supporter of the doctrine of the Magians, in the place of the Vistaçpa of the Avesta, who opens a wide path for the teaching of Zoroaster; Agathias, on the other hand, expresses himself with greater circumspectness; he cannot decide whether the father of Darius or some other Hystaspes is meant.
The result is this: Before the time of Alexander of Macedon, at the latest in the first half of the fourth century B.C., the Greeks were aware that Zoroaster had founded the doctrine of the Magians; in the last centuries B.C. and onwards it was known that he belonged to Bactria and Eastern Iran; but it was not till the fourth century A.D. that he was known to have lived under king Hystaspes; at any rate we have no older evidence on this point.
Much more recent in date, and of far less value, is the information derived from the East, with the exception of the Avesta, on Zarathrustra. It does not go back beyond the period of the Arabian empire over Iran. The Bundehesh, written in this period (p. 65, n. 3), contains a genealogy, which carries Zarathrustra's origin beyond Pourushaçpa and Haechataçpa, from whom, according to the Avesta, he was sprung (p. 38), through twelve generations to Manuschithra (Minocher). In the Avesta, the soul of the pure Manuschithra, the son of Airyu, is invoked;137 it has been observed above that the national genealogy in Iran placed Thraetaona, and not Manu, at the head; Airyu, the son of Thraetaona, was the proper progenitor of the Airyas. With the name Manuschithra, i. e. scion of Manu, who is now the son of Airyu, this table passed back into the old Arian conception of the father Manu (p. 44). In the Avesta, Zarathrustra is connected by his father, the fourth sacrificer of the Haoma, with the old sacrificers; and by deriving his family from Manuschithra the Bundehesh places him in the closest relation to the progenitors of the Airyas. For the rest this book has little to say about the life of Zoroaster. It informs us that the house of Pourushaçpa lay on a hill on the river Daraja, a river which we cannot identify;138 the Bundehesh places it in Airyana Vaeja (Airanvij), in a district which we must place in the high region of the Hindu Kush, on the sources of the Oxus (p. 31, n. 2), though the Bundehesh informs us that "it lay by the side of Atropatene." According to another passage in the book, Airyana Vaeja lay near the garden of Yima and Cashmere. In a third passage the garden of Yima, which we are compelled by unmistakable indications in the Avesta, to seek on the divine mountain, lies in the centre of Iran, under Mount Damkan.139 Atropatene, as a name for the Alpine land in the north-west of Iran (now Aderbeijan), came into use in the time of the Greek empire; at any rate we cannot trace it earlier.140 Athrapaiti means "lord of fire"; athrapata, "one protected by fire"; in the remote mountains of this district the old fire-worship was preserved with peculiar zeal under the Seleucids; from the time of Ardeshir the Sassanids venerated the fire-temple Adar Guçasp (near Takht-i-Soliman), which lay in this region, above all others, and this was the reason why in the time of the Arabs it was thought that Airyana Vaeja must be sought there.141 In any case it is impossible, out of regard to the Bundehesh and even later statements of the Moslem period, to place Zarathrustra in the north-west of Iran in order to represent him as a foreigner, reforming the religion of the north-east, when the Avesta, which distinctly places him in the east and puts him among the sacrificers and heroes of the east and rulers of Bactria, together with the older and more important evidence of the West, is on the opposite side.
The "Book of Zartusht," one of the most recent books of the Parsees (it dates from the thirteenth century of our era), can only tell us of the marvellous preservation of Zarathrustra and the miracles which he wrought. The first miracle recorded in it is the fact that Zoroaster smiled at his birth. But the wicked king Duransarun sought to murder the newly-born child in his cradle. His arm is paralysed, and he cannot strike the blow home. Then the evil spirits steal the child, kindle a great fire in the desert, and throw him into it. But he sleeps peacefully in the fire, and his mother recovers him without injury. A herd of cattle are about to trample him on a narrow path, when the largest one stands over and protects him, till the herd have passed by. In a similar manner he is preserved when a pair of wild horses are driven over him. Even the wolves will not eat him. When he has reached his thirtieth year these trials are over, and Zarathrustra emigrates with his followers. On reaching Iran the good spirit Vohu mano appeared and conducted him to Auramazda. He had to pass over a fiery mountain, but the fire did not singe a hair; molten metal was poured on his breast, and he felt it not; his entrails were removed and then replaced without injury to him. Auramazda gave him the Avesta and commanded him to go to king Vistaçpa (now Kai Gushtaçp) to Balkh, and proclaim it to him. In Balkh Zoroaster overcame the sages of the king in argument, but they maligned him before their master as a wizard, and he was put in prison. Then the feet of the king's horse were drawn up into its belly, and the king bade Zarathrustra heal his horse. He required the king to believe in him and his doctrine; and when the king had acknowledged the new faith, one of the horse's feet was restored to it. Zarathrustra further demanded that Vistaçpa's son Çpentodata (Isfendyar) should consecrate himself to the defence of the new faith, that the king's consort should adopt the law, and those who maligned him should be punished. When these three requests had been complied
Agathias, 2, 24.
Suidas, Μάγοι, Ζωροάστρης.
Above, p. 17. Georg. Sync. p. 78, 79. Vol. I. p. 241, 247.
Yet with Moses Zoroaster is a Mede, I. p. 87.
Plut. "Pomp." c. 24.
Cf. Von Gutschmid, "Die Sage vom heiligen Georg;" Sächsische Gesellschaft d. W., 1861, s. 175.
"Farvardin Yasht," 131.
C. 20 in Justi, [c. 20; § 32 West]; cf. "Vend." 19, 15.
C. 30, cf. above, p. 40. [C. 29, § 14, West.]
Strabo, p. 515, derives it from Atropates, whom Alexander made satrap there.
Still less important than the Bundehesh is the gloss on "Vend." 1, 60. "Many say that Zartusht was from Rak in Atropatan." Ragha is not in Atropatene.